Genealogy on TV

NBC and Fox have genealogy programs in development according to The Live Feed.

Tipping their hand?

The Ancestry Insider wrote today about an Ancestry survey and what it may reveal about Ancestry's future plans. There are some really good ideas among the list: specify interest by record type, add to your task list suggested next steps based on what you've already done, see indicators on search results that show which records have already been viewed, receive suggestions on where to search for missing information about an ancestor, correct fields other than names, add fields not keyed by Ancestry and access images as you would on a microfilm reader.

I'd still like to see Ancestry give each search a list of geographically relevant databases for the user to consider, and update that list as more become available like the family tree does with new hints. Many of my ancestors and the other people I research didn't move around much, and I would like to enter a range of years and a location and see which Ancestry databases are most relevant based on distance and/or jurisdiction (e.g. city, county, neighboring counties, state).

2008 and 2009

I'm a few days tardy with a summation of what was accomplished and how well I did with my plans in 2008, so here it goes:

• I'm still slowly combining databases into one.
  
• I'm also slowly adding information and images to my site, ShowMeAncestors.
  
• Nothing happened on the DNA front. I still believe that testing would be the fastest and cheapest way to at least get pointed in the right direction on at least two families.
  
• The local library reopened a little ahead of schedule in November (they had been closed since last December to remodel and expand). In addition to being very close to home, this may now be the most comfortable library in the area. Best yet, they purchased two digital microfilm scanners.
  
• I did make substantial progress while researching the ancestry of my two nephew's mothers. However, this is yet another example of me getting away from what I've deemed a priority and really need to be focusing on — merging databases.
  
• A photo of Emil LANKAU surfaced when I made contact with another branch of his descendants. This was very exciting. The photo also showed his wife, Alvina RICK, and just as I had suspected for a few years, we already did have a photo of her that was not labeled. (The theory had been that the photo was of my grandfather's two grandmothers because we knew who one of them was.)
  
• No news on the EBERT, HEATON, HUHN or LODENKAMPER brick walls.

Here is what I hope to accomplish in '09:

• Order records or outsource research in Germany on at least five different family lines. I didn't contact the Evangelical archives in Hessen like I wanted to last year for REINMÖLLER research, so that's on the list. And I now have leads for help in Bavaria and Niedersachsen to help with a few more families.
  
• Resume researching deeds. I started on this years ago, but got away from it.
  
• Get a new computer. Things are starting to drag, especially opening large image files.
  
• Convince one of my brothers into helping more. What's the best way to get someone addicted to genealogy?
  
• Make more of an effort to track down photos with a broader approach to contacting relatives.
  
• Pick one family, see what holes need to be filled and publish a book through Lulu or a similar service to see how well that process works.